Updated: June 2, 2020
Melissa Leo Career Summation
Occup. Inheritance: No
Social class: upper middle; father, editor; mother teacher; parents divorced
Formal Education: Bellows Falls High School, Vermont
Training: SUNY Purchase
Acting Debut: TV All My Childre, 1984; age 24
Breakthrough Role: TV Homicide, 1993; age 33
Stage Debut:
TV Debut: All My Children
Film Debut:
Oscar: 1, Supporting Actress, The Fighter, 2010; age 50 (won at second nomination)
Oscar Track (nominations): 2 noms; Best Actress nom, Frozen River; age 48
Other Awards: Emmys (daytime and prime time)
Marriage:
Politics:
Death:
Melissa Leo (born September 14, 1960) has received an Oscar Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Critics’ Choice Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Daytime Emmy
After appearing on several TV shows and films in the 1980s, Leo became a regular on the television shows “All My Children,” which won her a Daytime Emmy Award, and “The Young Riders.”
Breakthrough Role
Her breakthrough role came in 1993 as detective and later sergeant Kay Howard on the TV series “Homicide: Life on the Street” (1993–1997).
Oscar Records: Two Nominations; 1 Oscar
Leo received critical acclaim for her performance as Ray Eddy in the 2008 film “Frozen River,” earning her several nominations and awards, including Best Actress Oscar nomination.
In 2010, Leo won several awards for her performance as Alice Eklund-Ward in the film “The Fighter,” including Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
Leo was born in Manhattan and grew up on the Lower East Side. She is the daughter of Margaret (née Chessington), a California-born teacher, and Arnold Leo III, an editor at Grove Press, fisherman, and former spokesman for the East Hampton Baymen’s Association. She has one brother, Erik Leo. Her aunt is art historian Christine Leo Roussel.
Leo’s parents divorced, and her mother moved them to Red Clover Commune, in Putney, Vermont.
Leo began performing as a child with the Bread and Puppet Theater Company. She attended Bellows Falls High School in Bellows Falls, Vermont, and studied acting at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London and SUNY Purchase, but did not graduate, moving to New York to pursue acting jobs.
Acting Debut:
Leo’s acting debut came in 1984, for which she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Ingenue-Woman in a Drama Series for “All My Children.”
Leo appeared in several films, including the lead role as a straitlaced girl named Cookie who succumbed to prostitution in Streetwalkin’, A Time of Destiny, Last Summer in the Hamptons, and Venice/Venice.
She also had several appearances on television, most notably her role as Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on Homicide: Life on the Street until 1997. Three years later she reprised her role in the television movie, Homicide: The Movie.
After a brief hiatus from acting, Leo’s breakthrough came three years later in the Alejandro González Iñárritu film, 21 Grams released to critical acclaim. Leo appeared in a supporting role alongside Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio del Toro, and Clea DuVall.
Leo appeared in supporting roles throughout the 2000s including the film Hide and Seek, the indie American Gun, both in 2005, minor role in the comedy Mr. Woodcock.
In 2008, Leo earned critical praise for her performance in “Frozen River,” winning the Best Actress award from the Independent Spirit Awards, the Spotlight award from the National Board of Review, and Best Actress nominations from the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Broadcast Film Critics Association, and Academy Awards.
Emmy: Louis, 2013
In 2013, she won a Primetime Emmy Award for her guest role on the TV series “Louie.”
She starred in the 2015 Fox event series Wayward Pines as Nurse Pam.
She then starred in the 2017 Netflix film “The Most Hated Woman in America” as American Atheists founder Madalyn Murray O’Hair.